Puer Nazarenus

Puer Nazarenus

I lay awake in the predawn haze, slowing grasping where I am, what day it is, and trying to remember what I need to get done today when out of the blue comes these words: PUER NAZARENUS. Those words shook me out of my sleepy haze. I hadn’t thought or heard those Latin words for about forty-five years. Yes, I knew what they meant but why now?

I began my seminary career right out of high school. I enrolled in the junior seminary, Nazareth Hall. For the next two years, my vocation to the priesthood would be tested by a disciplined, semi monastic lifestyle. It was here I would be immersed in the study of Latin, religious studies, Gregorian chant and communal life. The whole lifestyle was designed to see if I was called to be a priest.

In the main hallway of this classical Italian architecture stood a large marble statute of the boy Jesus. The engraving at the base of the statue was Puer Nazarenus. Freely translated it read The Boy of Nazareth. I remember passing that statue on the way to and from class, chapel and dining hall, hardly ever giving it a thought until now.

Looking back, I understand the significance of that statue. Just as Jesus grew up in Nazareth, so my introduction into the discipline of the Lord began at Nazareth Hall. The Bible says that after Jesus was found in the Temple conversing with scholars and teachers, “he went back to Nazareth with his parents and lived obediently with them…and matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed both my God and man.”

Nazareth Hall is now an evangelical Bible School. I haven’t been back there in many years. But I suspect the Puer Nazarenus still stands in the marbled hallway overlooking new generations of Kingdom disciples. May they all persevere in the journey growing in wisdom, age and grace.

Thank you Lord for bringing to mind the start of my journey.